Run Away(101)

She started up the stairs. Ash did a little hop-step, so he could take the lead, but she blocked him off with her body and disapproving glare. So he stayed one step back. No one passed them on the stairs. In the distance they could hear the faint hum of someone playing a television too loudly.

Other than that, not a sound.

Ash glanced down the corridor of the second floor as Dee Dee continued to ascend.

No one. That was good.

When they reached the third floor, Dee Dee looked back at him. Ash nodded. They both took out their guns. They kept them low, by their sides, and maybe if someone opened a door right now, what with the crappy lighting in this place, maybe that person wouldn’t see that they were both carrying FN 5.7s with twenty-round mags.

They made their way to apartment B. Ash knocked on the heavy metal door.

They were ready.

No answer.

He knocked again. Nothing.

“Someone has to be home,” Dee Dee whispered. “We saw Greene come in.”

Ash took a look at the heavy metal door, put on, no doubt, to fortify against break-ins, but it had been done stupidly. The door was made of steel, but the doorframe was wood.

Not strong wood based on what Ash had seen of this place.

Ash took out his gun and nodded for Dee Dee to get ready. He raised his foot and kicked in the spot where the bolt slid into the wood.

The wood gave way as if it were made of dried twigs.

The door flew open. Ash and Dee Dee rushed inside.

No one.

Two single mattresses lay on either side of the floor. There were dried bloodstains on the floor. Ash took it all in, took it in fast, and knew something was seriously wrong. He looked on the floor. He bent down.

“What?” Dee Dee whispered.

“Yellow tape.”

“What?”

“This was a crime scene.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

They heard a door nearby open.

Dee Dee moved fast. She dropped her weapon onto the mattress, stepped outside, and closed what was left of the door behind her. A man had exited his apartment. He wore earbuds with music turned up so loud, Dee Dee could hear it from fifteen feet away.

He was near the stairs, almost ready to start heading down, and he hadn’t seen her yet. She stayed frozen, hoping that he wouldn’t turn toward her.

But he did.

When the man saw her, he pulled out his earbuds.

Dee Dee rewarded him with her full-wattage smile.

“Hello,” she said, almost making this simple greeting a double entendre. “I’m looking for Cornelius.”

“Wrong floor.”

“Oh?”

“Cornelius is on the second floor. Apartment B.”

“Silly me.”

“Yeah.”

He looked as though he was going to come toward her. That wouldn’t be good. She slipped her hand into her back pocket and readied the switchblade.

She’d have to slice this guy’s throat. Do it quickly and quietly.

Dee Dee waved at him. “Thanks for the help. Take care now.”

The man looked as though he might keep walking back toward her, but it was almost as though something primitive told him it was best to move on.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling up. “You too.”

They looked at each other another long moment before the man turned and hurried down the stairs. Dee Dee listened for a second, wondering whether he might stop on the second floor and warn Cornelius. But she could hear him reach the ground floor and push open that graffiti-filled door.

When he was gone, Ash exited the apartment door and handed Dee Dee her gun. He’d heard it all. They moved silently to the stairwell and made their way to the second-floor apartment B. Ash put his ear near the door.

Voices. Several of them.

Ash gave the signal. They got the guns ready. The plan was simple. Burst in with guns a-blazing. Kill any and all inhabitants.

He pointed the gun at the lock so as to shoot it—no need for any kind of subtlety—but suddenly two things happened at once.

The doorknob started to turn.

And from down the corridor, a man shouted, “Rocco, look out!”

*



“Rocco, look out!”

Simon heard the first burst of gunfire as Rocco pulled open the door.

They say time slows down at times of great danger, almost like Neo being able to see and dodge bullets in The Matrix. That was just an illusion, of course. Time is constant. But Simon remembered reading that this particular time illusion was caused by how we store memory. The richer and denser the memory of an event—for example, during moments when you are terrified—the longer you perceive that event lasted.

This phenomenon also explains why time seems to go faster as you age. When you’re a child, experiences are new and so your memories are fresh and intense—so again time seems to slow down. As you grow older, especially when you are stuck in a routine, very few new or vibrant memories are being laid and so time flies by. That’s why when a child looks back on summer, it seemed to last forever. For adults, it’s barely a blink.

So now, as Simon heard a man—Luther—scream through the bullet blasts—time seemed to be knee-deep in molasses.

Rocco pulled the door all the way open.

Simon stood a few feet behind Rocco, so the big man’s broad back and shoulders blocked his view. He could see nothing.